Month: May 2018

How much more iconic can you get for Porsche than the Porsche 911S? The 911 is a great looking car. Yet for some reason, the owners of this particular 911 decided to paint it in a mediocre shade of yellow, then add a couple of yellow logos that are almost invisible, and you have a C- scheme.

This is my favorite week of the year! Not because of the Memorial Day racing, but because I’m gonna get my kicks at Route 66 Raceway this weekend! I’m the kind of guy who loves the roar of an 11,000 horsepower engine, and the scent of burnt rubber, burnt nitromethane, and clutch dust! This is what being a racing fan is all about

I also love that the NHRA allows their fans to meet the drivers for no extra cost. NASCAR is too money oriented, and Formula 1 is so expensive that it isn’t even worth the effort. IndyCar does charge extra, but the prices are actually pretty reasonable. This access to drivers is a big draw, and I’m going to make a somewhat bold prediction. The Route 66 Nationals are going to out draw the Overton’s 400 in terms of ticket sales.

This isn’t that bold because ticket prices are somewhat more reasonable, and the above-mentioned access to drivers. The NHRA has shown in recent years that it is a box office draw, as opposed to NASCAR which has seen shrinking attendance for the last ten years. If NASCAR wants to increase fan attendance, one of the changes they should make is better access to drivers. Fans have been saying this for years, but now, I think NASCAR should listen.

It should be noted that the NHRA will never score higher television ratings than NASCAR. That is just a fact of life. FOX has done an amazing job with the NHRA, but it’s not a television draw as much as it is a box office draw. We have to accept the fact that the racing boom is over, and racing isn’t the draw it once was. I’m also sure that there will never be another racing boom on the level of the 1990’s again. It’s sad but true.

There are still a lot of racing fans out there, and the various sanctioning bodies need to understand that the fans should be part of what drives the sport. Fan attendance and television ratings should be one of the top priorities. I hope for the sake of the sport they start to be. I’ll talk about my experience at Route 66 next Friday.

Kevin Harvick #4 Busch Throwback Ford Fusion-The vintage can design worked for Brad Keselowski last year, and it works for Kevin Harvick this year. The car has a great look with a great color scheme, and earns an A as a result.

Paul Menard #21 Menard’s/Knauf Ford Fusion-The new Penske template is a piece of perfection. The schemes all look great, are bold, but not over designed messes. This is yet another perfect example of a great Penske Template scheme. A

William Byron #24 Hertz Chevy Camaro-As much as I like the color scheme here, I can’t say the same for the design. It’s a little too over designed for my taste. Toning down the stripes would work better. It’s still not a bad design,but it does have its flaws, so I’ll give it a B+.

James Whitener and Gregg Mixon found GIC-Mixon Motorsports in 2001. Using a series of different drivers, they fielded Xfinity Series teams from 2002 to 2005. The team did not have any success, failing to score a top 10, or even lead a lap. The two owners shut down the team in 2006. Mixon and Whitener would later reunite to found JGL Racing in 2014, which still runs teams today.

In 2003, Mike Harmon raced a number of races sponsored by The FanZCar. One of his crew members was Rodney Shearer, who passed away in 2017. He wore this well-worn Simpson double-layer firesuit for his time with GIC-Mixon, and the suit has been recycled. The suit shows heavy use with numerous stains and some fire discoloration.The collar is a standard collar, and has no designs on it.The cowl has a standard Simpson warranty label, with a yellow piece of paper pinned to it, and an M.T.O 6 tag, which shows heavy use.The right chest features a NASCAR BUSCH SERIES GRAND NATIONAL DIVISION logo and a GIC MIXON MOTORSPORTS logo embroidered into it.The left chest features a UNOCAL 76 logo and a CHEVY bow tie logo embroidered.The front torso has GIC MOTORSPORTS embroidered in gold across it.The belt features RODNEY SHEARER embroidered in white on the black fabric.The legs feature THE FANZCAR.COM logos in television position, which have been blacked out with Sharpie. The cuffs show light fire discoloration, and have blue and white flame designs.The black shoulder epaulets have GOODYEAR embroidered in white.The right sleeve has a SIMPSON patch sewn it, and 44 embroidered. The cuffs have the same flame design as the leg cuffs.The left sleeve has a NASCAR logo embroidered, a SIMPSON patch sewn it, and 44 embroidered. The cuffs have the same flame design as the leg cuffs.The rear of the suit has some wear, including fire damage on the cuffs.The back of the neck is unadorned.The back torso features a THE FANZCAR.COM logo embroidered, which has been blacked out using Sharpie. This is so the suit can be recycled.GIC-Mixon Motorsports was one of those teams that raced and worked hard, but achieved little, if anything. There are many of these teams in the history of racing, at all levels. It’s sad that teams that work hard with little resources don’t get the recognition they deserve. These teams work just as hard as the super teams. They deserve to be spot lighted, and be given the respect that the super teams get regularly. I’m glad that Whitener and Mixon have founded another team.

JGL Racing has been racing full time in the Xfinity Series with a series of drivers, and has 6 top 5’s and 12 top 10’s. They are a team perfectly capable of wining a race in the very foreseeable future. With Kaz Grala as a driver, it should only be a matter of time.

The Simca MS670 is a very nice looking car. This car has a nice shade of blue across the whole car. There is also a dull yellow stripe that extends from the front to the brake duct. There is also a white stripe across the whole car. The dull yellow is also on the rear fins. The whole car works very well. It’s a good look, with a design and color scheme that works, and it earns an A.

Advertising is a really weird thing in 2018. Commercials can be so good you want to buy the product, or so awful that you never want to use that product again. Coca Cola has started the names on the label nonsense that they’ve done over the past few summers. I personally don’t get the names thing, but that’s just me. But for some reason, Coca Cola feels the need to promote the names gimmick with overly annoying commercials.

I thought that the music used in the 2017 commercials was bad. They used three really bad songs from groups that I’ve never heard of. This year, they have a custom jingle sung by an unidentified group. It’s too sugary, too peppy, and it WILL aggravate you. What really sucks about this is the fact that when I watch NASCAR or the NHRA, they play this commercial ad nauseam. I am not unreasonable, but STOP WITH THE IRRITATING COMMERCIALS!

As much as I love soda, whenever Coca Cola starts the name gimmick, and they start the commercials, I stop drinking Coca Cola. First, does putting names on the label increase sales? Obviously it does, since they do it every summer, but this is nothing but a gimmick, and the overly annoying advertising isn’t needed. This isn’t just limited to Coca Cola. People HATE Progressive Insurance because of Flo, and people hate Geico because of the gecko.

When did advertising become so divisive? When did this start? I get that there are commercials that are in bad taste. I get that there are commercials that inadvertently offend people. What I don’t get is why there are a series of commercials that are so hated by lots of people, they stop using a product. I’m just saying that if you are alienating people with your commercials, maybe change them.

Also, I’m part of a large group who didn’t care in any capacity about the Royal Wedding. Talk about an overly-hyped event that annoyed me to no end. The Royal Family has NO impact on my life whatsoever, and the fact that one of them got hitched isn’t my concern. There was extra concern in Evanston, since his wife is a graduate from Northwestern, and lived in Evanston. To that I say that Laurie Dann, who would go on to shoot a number of students at Hubbard Woods Elementary School also lived in Evanston. I’m glad its over, and I hope I don’t have to tolerate this crap again for a long time. I’m really cranky today, for whatever reason, so I’m going to end this here.